BRIDGING THE USER-IS GAP - A STUDY OF MAJOR INFORMATION-SYSTEMS PROJECTS

A `culture gap' between IS professionals and their business counterpar ts has been blamed for many of the problems and failures that have pla gued systems development in the last four decades. A rich model of int egration is developed based on normative, organizational and work grou p features. The model is utilized to analyse survey results and case s tudies of 12 major IS projects being implemented in the UK retail and electronics sectors. The research provides detailed profiles of goal, transitional and unhelpful practices and states, and highlights key su ccess variables in achieving user-IS staff integration on major IS dev elopment projects.